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None of these premises is, or is required to be, registered, and apart from
fish-curing and fish-frying premises, which are required to be in compliance with
certain requirements contained in by-laws of the London County Council, none of
them is subject to any very special provisions. Any individual, in short, may take
any sort of premises, and proceed to cook and prepare food for sale; no notice to
the local authority is required, and unless complaint is received, or infection or
suspicious illness occurs, or the premises are visited by an inspector, the fact that
they are so used may never be discovered.
That this is so appears to be at least unsatisfactory. On account of changed
conditions the amount of home cooking done is steadily diminishing, and more
and more the cook-shop, the restaurant, and the cooked-food shop are being
resorted to. In the poorer quarters of the Borough the extent to which the fried
fish shop, for example, is depended upon may be judged from the number of
children making purchases during the school dinner hour, and the number of adult
and child customers in the evenings. In the evenings, too, the busiest shops in
the main thoroughfares are those where cooked foods are retailed over the counter.
Legislation, which did not foresee these changes, contains no provision for
dealing properly with the premises, and the Legislature has made no attempt to
obtain control over them. Such places as the law, as it now stands, requires to be
registered or licensed are mainly those in which uncooked food is dealt with, e.g.,
slaughter-houses, cowsheds, milk shops, etc.
Having regard to the changes, the law should be extended in order to provide
for registration of the premises in which such articles as sausages are made or food
is prepared or cooked also. Before establishing a food manufacturing business, a
restaurant or eating rooms of any description, a cook-shop or a cooked-food shop,
it should be necessary for application for registration to be made to the local
authority, and registration should not be granted until the premises had been
inspected and passed as suitable.
All this has been said many times before, and during the year the London
County Council at the suggestion of the Metropolitan Boroughs' Standing Joint
Committee undertook the preparation of a Bill for submission to Parliament
containing a number of clauses dealing with this and certain allied questions.
As a matter of routine, a number of restaurants, food premises, etc., are
visited each week by the Food Inspector, and any matters discovered at these
inspections are dealt with at once. In 1931, the total number of inspections was
672, the number of notices served being 20. If and when registration is made
compulsory, the work of supervision and control will be greatly simplified, though
it is just possible that at first, at least, it might entail an increase in work. The
matter is, however, of sufficient importance from the public health point of view to
warrant it. Just as from this point of view also, the suggestion that there should
be registration of restaurants and cooked-foods shops, even of all premises in which
food is prepared for sale is warranted.
Food Stalls.—Under the by-laws with regard to registration of street traders
under the L.C.C. {General Powers) Act, 1927, food stalls, in common with other
stalls, must be registered. The Committee actually responsible is the Highways
Committee, who co-operate in the closest possible manner with the Public Health
Committee and endeavour to limit the number of traders to whom registration is
granted. Wherever possible, the Committee refuse to allot space for stalls from
which food is to be sold, and in each case full enquiries are made and investigations
of storage accommodation carried out. Where improvements are required and
are possible, these are called for. If the conditions are unsatisfactory and
irremediable, this is made a ground for refusal of registration. All food stalls are
inspected daily by officers of the Public Health Department, a special feature being
made of inspections over each week-end. Stalls from which meat is retailed
though they must comply with certain requirements laid down in the Public Health
(Meat) Regulations, 1925, are not registered.
FOOD.
A.—Milk Supply.
Analysis of milk.—The quarterly returns as to milk samples are as follows:—
1st Quarter, 54; 2nd Quarter, 55; 3rd Quarter, 49; 4th Quarter, 53, making a